


Endings and Beginnings

by narcissablaxk



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: 90s LawRusso, And by girls I mean the karate husbands!, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bar Lawrusso, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, M/M, Regret, Rematch, Return to the All Valley, Some Johnny/Ali allusions, The girls are fighting!, lawrusso, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26449936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: Dear former champion:We would like to invite you to attend the 1994 All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament as a guest of honor. We are committed to honoring the past champions of this historic tournament, and we encourage you to further your legacy by joining us in celebration of this year’s best young fighters. As a two-time champion, you will be given the honor of presenting the next champion with their first place trophy.Johnny and Daniel re-unite at the All Valley Tournament in 1994.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 48
Kudos: 378





	1. Chapter 1

When he won the All Valley Under 18 Tournament in ’84, Daniel spent the next two weeks feeling like a celebrity. Kids stopped him in the grocery store in Reseda to ask him to do the crane kick; Freddy stopped by after graduation and invited him to a party, all sheepish grins and mumbled apologies about falling off the map while Daniel was being harassed by Cobra Kai. Daniel didn’t really believe him, but he accepted the apologies and the invitation to the party anyway. 

The party itself was a dream – everything Daniel always hoped high school would be – except it was marking the _end_ of high school, and the beginning of something else. The ends and beginnings of things always rubbed him the wrong way, like he was supposed to be poised for a fight he didn’t know how to win. He was constantly on edge, waiting to be blindsided by the beginning of something monumental. 

That something, his mother determined, was going to be college. His savings account was specifically for that purpose, she said sternly over dinner one night. He was smart enough, he was determined enough, and _she_ was stubborn enough to lean on him until it happened. He would be the first LaRusso to go to college. 

And then she got a job in Fresno, and he went to Okinawa, the ticket emptying a considerable amount of that precious college fund. But what else was he supposed to do? Not help Mr. Miyagi the way his mentor had helped him? 

Being in a different country felt like the beginning of something important – watching Mr. Miyagi fight for his home, for love, and for his life felt monumental, far more monumental than college. This was _real_ life – this was what being alive truly was. It was falling in love, being pulled through crowded streets by a woman who looked at him like she understood everything he wasn’t saying, it was helping a village stay alive. 

He wondered, even now, years later, if it was Kumiko that made him feel alive in Okinawa or if it was Okinawa itself. He never really had the time to figure it out. 

Sometimes he dreamed of the tea ceremony, of the importance in the smallest of gestures, in the symbolism of love. In his dream Kumiko’s face is still as bright and open and easy to read as it had been that day, but she drifts away before he can kiss her, eyes out the window, looking toward her future, toward her calling. 

Because dancing was her calling, wasn’t it? She wouldn’t have abandoned him unless it was life-changing; _they_ had been life-changing, could have been. But who was he to argue with destiny? He sat at his desk, looking down at paperwork he had long decided to put off until tomorrow. Was this supposed to be his calling? Selling used cars at a dealership with more hair gel in its employees than was left in the greater Los Angeles area? 

Perhaps he was one of those people who didn’t have a calling – at least, that’s what he thought on the ugly days after ten hours of standing around and listening to people prevaricate over whether or not they were going to buy the car they needed more than wanted, only to put off the purchase for another day, leaving Daniel drained and sweaty with nothing to show for it. He was going to be one of those people who existed outside the frames of other people’s greatness, reliving a few adolescent moments as if they were gospel until his mind forgot them completely. He would never top ’84. ’85 had been a nightmare win, one he didn’t even really count as his own. 

He would drink Zima until he forgot what year it was (’94? ’96?) and lie on the floor of his crappy apartment, staring at the stain on the ceiling that he once dramatically declared looked like blood (it was just water damage from the apartment upstairs), listening to a local radio station that played music he didn’t know, and think about destiny. 

He supposed it shouldn’t bother him as much as it did, but every Saturday, he would visit Mr. Miyagi and be reminded that the man was as at home with his destiny as anyone Daniel had ever met, and God, what he would give to feel that way. 

Sometimes, he allowed himself to think about doing karate again. He could brush up on his moves, get even better than he used to be, and then maybe he could teach it. Maybe that would be his destiny. 

And then he’d remember Mike Barnes, screaming through rage, sweat, and the blood on Daniel’s face. _“Your karate is a joke!”_

His hangover was always the punishment for thinking about things he couldn’t have. 

***

Johnny was used to this – it was his weekly tradition. On Friday nights, he would go to the bar down the street from his apartment, and drink until he could barely stumble home. He didn’t need to do it, necessarily, but his job was difficult, the people he came into contact with were even more difficult, but you know what wasn’t difficult? Beer. 

He didn’t mind his job while he was doing it, most of the time. He was constantly bursting with energy and no outlet, and doing handyman work and freelance construction often gave him plenty of things to do to use that energy up before it became a problem. Because Johnny with extra energy was…well, Bobby used to call him a handful. 

He leaned onto his elbows, heavier than before. He missed Bobby – more than he’d probably ever tell him, and he missed him the most on Friday nights. He had the space and time to think about things on Friday nights, on his slow, meandering journey toward inebriation, and Bobby Brown featured more than he’d like to admit. 

Dutch surfaced once he was piss drunk, though Johnny blamed that on memories. The last memory he had of Dutch was the man getting shoved into the back of a police car, his head and shirt soaked in beer, blood flowing freely from his lip. The man he had been fighting was deposited into another police car, and then they were both gone. When he thought of Dutch, he always thought of him soaking wet, reeking of beer, his voice hoarse with alcohol. 

He tried to visit him during his short stint in prison, three strikes and all that, but Dutch was different while he was inside, like he knew he had to crawl down inside himself to stay safe. He wouldn’t drop the mask for anyone, not even Johnny. 

Jimmy and Tommy were easier – they were _here._ They didn’t see each other as much as they should, but when he missed them, he could find them. Perhaps that was part of Johnny’s problem, and why he always found himself in the same place every week; they were around, but they didn’t feel close. 

The tournament in ’84 changed everything. He barely graduated high school, with Sid constantly on his case about quitting karate, Kreese’s voice finding him in nightmares, a tight hold around his neck that would keep Johnny awake for hours, staring at his ceiling. He would listen to music, mouth moving with the words, and stare at the one glow-in-the-dark star he’d put on the ceiling that no one ever noticed. 

He still had one, in his rundown apartment now. It reminded him of Ali, who had given him a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars when he told her about Sid. 

“You should never be afraid where you sleep,” she’d told him, her hand tender on his neck. “And no one can be afraid when they can see the stars.” 

They’d covered the ceiling with them, jumping from his bed to press the adhesive to the ceiling. It was one of the last happy memories he had with her; he’d forgotten her birthday a week later, and not to long after that, she met Daniel LaRusso. 

The day after Daniel LaRusso walked onto the beach, Johnny came home to find all of the stars pulled from the ceiling, Sid complaining at the dinner table that they were “gay,” and “I won’t have a fairy for a step-son.” Johnny managed to save one and put it back up, small enough that Sid never noticed. 

He was supposed to go visit his mom tomorrow – the thought made him simultaneously content and nauseated. He drank more of his beer. Seeing his mother meant seeing Sid; they’d tried meeting at restaurants, or Golf N Stuff, but Sid always found out and his mother always paid the price. So now, they met at the house, they suffered through Sid’s lunch, and then they went for a walk, where they could be themselves. 

Johnny wondered if the idea of that walk was enough to send him home before he got drunk. 

It didn’t. 

***

“Daniel-san!” Of course Mr. Miyagi was already up and energetic. Daniel felt even more exhausted just looking at him, eyes bright, cup of tea in his hand. “Come in, drink tea.” 

He wondered if Mr. Miyagi could tell he was hungover – he blinked slowly behind his sunglasses, debating leaving them on even inside the house. Usually, the open windows and natural light made Mr. Miyagi’s home seem even more inviting. Today, it was a perfectly packaged migraine waiting to happen. 

He followed his mentor inside, careful to toe off his shoes in the doorway. He took the offered tea and sipped. 

“How work?” Mr. Miyagi asked, as was his tradition. Daniel waved the question away, too hungover to think about his job, too bitter to return to last night’s reverie. 

“What about you?” he asked, trying to sink gracefully to the floor to sit at the table, almost bumping his knee on the corner in the process. Mr. Miyagi gave him a knowing look, and with a sigh, Daniel pulled his sunglasses down his nose and off, leaving them behind on the tabletop. “How’s work?” 

Mr. Miyagi shrugged, and Daniel could see, now that his sunglasses were off, the little scratches on his knuckles, his thinner skin easily torn now with age. It ached, sharp and deep, to see time taking its toll on someone who deserved to be exempt from the horrors that time brought. He wished, as he did on a weekly basis, that Mr. Miyagi’s Little Trees had been successful, so they both could be happy, doing what they enjoyed together, where Daniel could be of more help to him. 

“Got something,” Mr. Miyagi said, getting to his feet wearily. Daniel didn’t really hear him. He was too wrapped up in what-ifs, in parallel universes where they were both happier, where they had more freedom, more time. 

And then an envelope was fluttering down onto the table in front of him, and he read “All Valley Committee” in the return address line. 

“What is this?” he asked, turning it over to see it was still sealed. 

“Not mine,” Mr. Miyagi said simply, taking his seat again and drinking more of his tea. Daniel stared at him for a moment, lost in thought. “Open.” 

“Right, yeah,” he said, slipping his index finger under the sealed flap and ripping it open. He was reminded forcibly of 1985, when he had been so excited to go defend his title as champion, holding an envelope a lot like this one, and the disappointment that ballooned in his chest when Miyagi was completely indifferent to his enthusiasm. 

And then everything that followed. 

“Daniel-san,” Mr. Miyagi prompted, nodding at the envelope. 

“Sorry,” he said. 

“Get lost in past, miss present,” Mr. Miyagi said serenely. 

Daniel exhaled in agreement and pulled the letter from the envelope. 

“Dear former champion,” it read. “We would like to invite you to attend the 1994 All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament as a guest of honor. We are committed to honoring the past champions of this historic tournament, and we encourage you to further your legacy by joining us in celebration of this year’s best young fighters.” 

“What is it?” Mr. Miyagi asked, eyes curious but hands too polite to take the letter himself. 

“As a two-time champion, you will be given the honor of presenting the next champion with their first place trophy,” he read, eyes scanning over the words quickly. 

“They want me to go back to the tournament,” he said, passing the letter over to Mr. Miyagi. 

He felt like he was standing in 1985 again, handing the letter over to Mr. Miyagi just for him to put it immediately back down, his eyes uninterested, too focused on fixing a bonsai tree. He watched him closely, wondering if this would play out the same way. Perhaps he would actually listen to Mr. Miyagi this time, the way he hadn’t in ’85. Not listening to him brought him far more punishment than he could have predicted. 

He wouldn’t risk it this time. 

“Go,” Mr. Miyagi said simply. 

Daniel froze, teacup halfway to his mouth. “What?” 

“Go to tournament,” Mr. Miyagi clarified. He stood and gathered his teacup, taking it over to the sink, where he rinsed it out and put it upside down to dry. 

Daniel scrambled to his feet and followed him, trying to ignore the way his head pounded. “But…didn’t you tell me that tournaments were unimportant?” 

“Yes.” 

“Didn’t you tell me that I shouldn’t compete anymore?” 

“Yes.” 

“And that competitions are detrimental to the type of karate we know?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then?” 

“Tournament make you feel better.” 

Daniel turned back toward the table, away from Mr. Miyagi’s too-discerning eye. “Who said I felt bad?” 

“Face.” 

He scoffed, turning back to his mentor. “That’s just a hangover –”

“Hangover every weekend?” Miyagi asked, his voice sharper than before. 

Daniel snapped his jaw shut. He thought he had been smarter than that. Still, it didn’t really surprise him that Mr. Miyagi felt the sadness that permeated his constant existence. They didn’t speak, Daniel sifting through his thoughts, Mr. Miyagi emptying and cleaning the teapot, content to let Daniel sit in silence until he wished to speak again. 

“Did you ever feel like you found what you were meant to do?” Daniel asked finally. The question ached even before Mr. Miyagi answered. Because he knew the answer would be yes, and that would only confirm for him that _he_ was the lost one, it wasn’t something everybody else felt. He was the problem. 

“Yes,” Mr. Miyagi said, turning to him, leaning on the counter. 

“Karate?” Daniel asked. 

Mr. Miyagi smiled, a soft, sad thing that wound around Daniel’s chest and held tightly. “No, Daniel-san,” he said quietly. “Not karate.” 

“Well?” he faltered, at a loss. 

“Meant to live,” Miyagi said softly. 

Daniel sighed in frustration. “There has to be something more to life than just living,” he argued. 

Miyagi nodded, his hand on Daniel’s shoulder feather-light and still heavy like an anvil on his chest. “Find out when you start living,” he said. He let the silence hang heavy in the air before adding “Take girlfriend to tournament.” 

“Amanda?” Daniel asked. “She’s not really my girlfriend –”

Mr. Miyagi rolled his eyes and Daniel laughed, his first true laugh of the day. 

***

Johnny drove to his mother’s house still drunk from the night before. He could feel the telltale heaviness in his limbs, the cotton in his mouth. He sipped a cheap cup of black coffee, hoping the caffeine would counteract the alcohol left behind, but by the time he put his car in park, staring up through the windshield at a mansion-shaped prison, he couldn’t say conclusively whether or not it worked. 

The housekeeper let him in, taking in his appearance (unshaven, unbuttoned flannel shirt, Boston shirt beneath it, torn jeans) with a barely concealed grimace. He supposed spending years inside the big house gave her a discerning eye for clothing that Sid would immediately despise. 

“You look like you just crawled out of a ditch, boy,” Sid’s voice echoed in the foyer, and Johnny winced in surprise at the volume. “You sure you’re my son or are you here to clean the gutters?” 

“Step-son,” Johnny corrected under his breath. “How are you, Sid?” 

“Don’t ask if you don’t care.” 

_Okay._

He didn’t wait for him to come down the stairs; Johnny left him halfway down the steps, eyes searching for his mother. 

“I’m not done talking with you yet, boy,” Sid’s voice yanked him to an instinctive stop, a teenage reflex he hadn’t yet managed to break. “Get your ass back in here.” 

“Johnny,” his mother’s voice was saved him from having to go back, and he hugged her tightly in silent thanks. “Are you alright?” 

“Course I am,” he said nervously. How did she always know? 

“Lunch is ready, Sid,” she called, and led Johnny to the dining room, Sid mumbling behind them. 

“Still doing construction with that kid’s dad?” Sid asked before he had even sat down. Johnny sighed, and waited until the man had started eating to speak. 

“His name is Bobby, and yes, I still work for his dad.” 

“I suppose you expect us to believe that’s why you smell like the floor of a bar,” Sid grumbled, mouth full of food. Laura, beside him, grimaced into her plate, the expression shooting shame through Johnny, all the way at the other end of the large table. 

Johnny didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing, fork stabbing aimlessly at the food on his plate. 

“How is Bobby?” Laura asked, trying to steer the conversation to safer waters. “I haven’t seen him in a while.” 

“He’s doing preacher work in Sacramento,” Johnny offered. What were you supposed to call what Bobby did, anyway? Preachering? Ministering? “Charity work, I think.” 

“The only one of your chucklefuck friends that went to college,” Sid muttered, “and he went and became a preacher.” 

“Jimmy went to college too,” Johnny defended. 

“Oh yeah?” Sid asked. “What’s he doing now, living large in Encino Hills?” He scoffed and shoved more food in his mouth, Johnny trying to keep the sneer off his face. 

“He’s an accountant,” he clarified. 

“A glorified calculator.” 

Johnny sighed through his nose and caught his mother’s gaze, eyes big and worried. He stabbed a piece of salad violently and forced himself to eat it so he wouldn’t respond. Things would only get worse from here. 

“Oh, you got a letter,” his mother told him once they were free of the house, arm-in-arm a block away. She pulled away to rummage through her bag. “From the All Valley Committee.” 

“All Valley, like karate?” he asked. 

She nodded and passed it to him, folded in half but still unopened. “I managed to see it before Sid threw it out,” she said conspiratorially. 

Johnny grinned and tore the envelope open, almost ripping the letter in his haste. 

“Dear former champion, we would like to invite you to attend the 1994 All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament as a guest of honor,” he read out loud, his mother scanning the words over his shoulder. “We are committed to honoring the past champions of this historic tournament, and we encourage you to further your legacy by joining us in celebration of this year’s best young fighters. As a two-time champion, you will be given the honor of presenting the next champion with their first place trophy.” He looked to Laura. “Do you want to go with me?” he asked. 

She smiled at him, pretty and still youthful. “Wouldn’t you want to go with some of your friends?” 

“No,” he said truthfully. 

“Speaking of your friends, did I tell you I saw Ali?” 

Everything came to a screeching halt. 

“What?” he asked, only walking again when his mom pulled him along. “What do you mean?” 

“She’s in medical school,” Laura continued. “I saw her at some salon, I don’t remember where now. You should call her.” 

He wanted to. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “Ali hates me.” 

“No, she doesn’t,” Laura tsked. “She asked how you were, said that she missed you. She told me to tell you she said hello.” 

He rolled his eyes, looking out to the street so his mother wouldn’t see. “She was just being polite,” he said. “That’s just how Ali is.” 

His mother shrugged. “Then I don’t know why she gave me her phone number to give to you,” she said leadingly. 

Johnny left with a letter and a phone number in his pocket, and the irritating dilemma of which he would answer and which he would leave behind. 

***

“Is this how you charm girls?” Amanda asked, leaning against the door of Daniel’s car, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Bring them to places where you’re hailed as a God?” 

Daniel chuckled, straightening the lapels of his suit. Amanda pushed herself off the car to survey him appreciatively. That was one of the things he really liked about her – Amanda was unapologetic, open, blunt. Many people had called him the same; it was refreshing to see someone else that did the same thing. 

But she was logical, and level-headed in a way that he knew he wasn’t, and he found himself jealous of that self-assuredness that he always saw when he looked at her. In seeing her, in all her beauty and refinement, he saw all of his own rough edges, torn and re-stitched and torn again. 

“Is it working?” he asked, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to say. It didn’t feel right, being back here without Mr. Miyagi with him. But his mentor had no interest in returning, and Daniel didn’t blame him. He was the one searching for purpose, not Mr. Miyagi. 

Amanda slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and fell into step beside him. “I don’t know yet,” she said thoughtfully. “Let’s see if they have any embarrassing pictures of you first.” 

They did not have embarrassing photos of him, apparently, according to Amanda, but Daniel still found himself averting his eyes from the banner that showed him, barely sixteen years old, right before he delivered the crane kick that won him his first trophy. There was something terribly young about the man up there, eyes wide and terrified. He could still feel the hammering in his chest that he felt looking over the mat and locking eyes with Johnny Lawrence, knowing that he was going to make his life hell no matter the outcome of the tournament. 

He had been wrong about that, but the adrenaline lingered, like it had been lying in wait for him to return. 

“Well, would you look at this,” a tall man with a crisp suit said, clapping his hand on Daniel’s back, “the former two-time champ, Daniel LaRusso, in the flesh!” 

“Ooh,” Amanda said beside him, partly teasing, and it startled a smile onto his face as people surrounded him, clapping him on the back like they did when he won, congratulating him on something he accomplished so long ago it felt like a different lifetime. 

“I was here,” an older woman said, clutching a cane in one hand and Daniel’s forearm in the other, “when you did that,” she pointed up to the banner. “My son decided to take karate after that.” 

“Oh, thank you,” Daniel answered, but he didn’t really know if that was what he should say. 

He avoided looking at the banner for ’85, knowing that the picture was him flat on the mat, on the edge of defeat. He knew what came after that. 

_Your karate is a joke!_

“It’s the two-time champ!”

“Again?” Amanda asked, pressed firmly to Daniel’s side, the crowd pushing them closer together. Except, Daniel realized slowly, they weren’t rushing at him, they were rushing past him. In a few moments, he and Amanda were left almost completely alone, looking around in confusion. 

“Johnny Lawrence!” 

Daniel turned around so sharply he wrenched his arm out of Amanda’s hold, the surprised sound that fell out of her mouth completely obscured by the cheer that rose up from the crowd around Johnny Lawrence – he could just see his blond hair, a glimpse of his eyes, and a woman standing beside him. 

The crowd parted and Daniel felt all of the breath leave his lungs. 

Johnny and Ali, both of them painfully the same as they had been when they were in high school, arm in arm, Johnny smiling placatingly at his adoring fans while Ali tilted her head toward his shoulder and spoke to him in hushed tones.

He looked up at the banners and saw, with fresh eyes, the two banners before his own, Johnny’s face huge and intimidating and somehow softer in the photos, in spite of his brutal face of concentration. He was a boy in those photos, soft-cheeked and lit from inside. The man standing next to Ali now was a man, with a sharper jaw, longer hair. 

But still, the same one. 

“Who is that?” Amanda asked. 

“Nobody,” he muttered, a bitter taste at the back of his throat, at the same time that Ali’s voice said, “Daniel!” 

“Nobody, huh?” Amanda prodded gently, but there was no anger in her face. She turned before Daniel did, extending her hand. “Amanda,” she said, nudging Daniel with her shoulder to get him to turn around. 

“Hi, Ali Mills,” Ali’s voice was almost exactly the same – hearing her talk sent him reeling back to prom, to his smoking car engine, to her tearful confessions. “Nice to meet you.” 

Daniel managed, somehow, with his monumental bad luck, to turn around and lock eyes not with Ali, but with Johnny, who was looking at him while he shook Amanda’s hand. He had gotten taller since he’d last seen him, and he was still broad in the shoulders, Adonis-like in the face. Just seeing him, still handsome, sent a flare through him. 

He chalked it up to anger. 

“Oh, you’re Johnny Lawrence!” Amanda said excitedly. “I’ve heard so much about you.” 

“That’s not surprising,” Johnny said, and was his voice deeper than it had been before? It didn’t sound the same as it had the last time they’d spoken, when Johnny had passed him the trophy. His eyes were still on Daniel, not happy but not as malicious as he was used to. 

Daniel tore his eyes away to focus on Ali, who was looking up at him expectantly. “It’s…nice to see you,” he said, hesitating over the word. Ali blanched, noticing the pause. 

“Yeah,” she said softly, the word almost swallowed by the crowd noise. Daniel wondered, with a rush, what happened to that UCLA football player she said she was in love with, how she ended up back here, a mirror of her junior year, arm in Johnny Lawrence’s arm. 

“There are our two champions,” the tall man from before was back, a hand on each of Johnny and Daniel’s shoulders. “We’re so glad we could persuade two two-time champs to return to the tournament!” 

“You won twice?” Johnny asked, his eyebrows so high on his forehead Daniel almost asked him what the hell the tone of surprise was for, but the man between them bulldozed forward, leaving the question unanswered. 

“We have some VIP seats for you and your dates, if you would like to follow me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I thought this would be two parts but I lied - it's going to be three. Thank you guys for being patient while I got this out! One more chapter to go!

Johnny hadn’t intended on calling Ali after all. He spent a long time staring at the number, written on a scrap piece of paper, trying to decide the emotion that had spurred her to pen it in the first place. He relished the idea that she wanted to speak to him, that she still thought about him at all, but their senior year had permanently left a bad taste in his mouth, not just because of their break-up, but because of everything that came after. 

The way she seemingly fell head-over-heels for LaRusso only a few weeks after their two-year relationship ended? It felt like she hadn’t loved him that much after all, and even years later, he couldn’t shake that insecure notion. So why did she want to talk to him now, after all this time? 

But he was, as usual, powerless to deny her, even in written form, so he did call, and they did catch up, like she wanted, at a little taco stand by the beach, her hair blowing all over her face like it used to, her smile youthful and engaging, like they were still kids. 

“I’ve missed you,” she said, and he could hear the painful truth in her voice, the way she wasn’t proud to admit it. It made him smile, knowing that even though she didn’t want to, she still missed him the way he missed her. 

“I missed you, too,” he told her, and there was no shame in his voice, because his statement wasn’t a surprise. 

“I wanted to reach out,” she admitted later, on their walk near the waves, “after we graduated, after…everything happened.” 

“I wouldn’t have expected you to.” 

She glanced up at him, her eyes squinted against the sunlight, and suddenly, she was an adult, a grown woman, and they weren’t the same people anymore. It was like having the veil violently ripped from his vision, and he felt immeasurably sad. 

“I am sorry about what happened,” she said. “With…our breakup.” 

He shrugged. He knew that he was supposed to apologize, but he didn’t feel sorry. He was sorry that he lost her, still sorry that he lost her, but he wasn’t sorry about what happened after. He wasn’t sorry that he had been angry that she moved on so quickly. He wasn’t sorry about losing the tournament. 

The stuff that happened in the middle was different. 

“I would like for us to be friends,” she finally said into the silence when he didn’t speak. 

“I think I would like that, yeah,” he told her, and he was pretty sure he meant it. 

So here they were, sitting close to the mats, after Ali made the offhanded comment that she missed watching karate competitions after Johnny introduced the sport to her, their easy conversation completely destroyed by the presence of Daniel fucking LaRusso and his supermodel-looking girlfriend on the other side. 

“So how did you win the tournament in ’85?” Johnny asked, powerless to stop himself, because the question was eating at him, itching beneath layers of his skin. Daniel beat him, that was true, but he beat him with a gimmick kick that he still insisted was illegal. He wasn’t so good that he could win a second time. 

“Johnny –” Ali’s voice held a warning note, a familiar sound that both Johnny and Daniel immediately felt. 

“I’m not trying to be an asshole, I really want to know,” he said, and Daniel’s jaw clenched tightly, the muscles protruding with the force of it. 

“I beat everyone else,” he said simply, and the words were bit, cut short by his teeth. He was practically snarling. “You might be familiar with that idea.” 

“Because you beat me or because I won twice before you?” Johnny asked. 

Daniel’s hand, resting over his own thigh, tightened for a moment before his girlfriend slid her hand over it, and it slowly relaxed. Still, his jaw was tight, his eyes trying to avoid Johnny and not really succeeding. 

“I heard they added that new rule,” Johnny said when Daniel didn’t speak. “That the former champion gets a free pass to the finals.” He shifted in his seat, turning away from Daniel long enough to catch Ali’s stern gaze. “If only we had that in ’83.” 

“You saying you would have beaten me in ’83?” Daniel asked. 

“He’s not saying that,” Ali hastened to interject. 

Johnny shrugged. “I’m not _not_ saying that.” 

“Unbelievable.” 

“I’m just saying, it might have changed some things,” Johnny held up his hands in mock surrender, only to have Ali yank them back down again. 

“Some things have certainly changed,” Daniel grumbled, and Johnny felt Ali’s hand on his arm tighten for just a moment before letting go. 

Oh, he was _not_ going to bring Ali up in front of his girlfriend, was he? That would be a stupid move, even for LaRusso. He didn’t want to push it, but his inner high school bully did. 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said finally. 

Daniel’s eyes met his, bright amber and shining. “You know what I mean,” he said, but his eyes lingered after the statement was done. Johnny let him look – what was LaRusso going to find, anyway? 

“Explain it to me,” he said, and Daniel’s breath all but stopped. He huffed, the same way he used to do when they were teenagers, and leaned past Johnny to Ali. 

“What the hell are you doing here with him, anyway?” he asked, in that same belligerent way he always spoke when he was angry. “After everything he did.” 

“What’s going on?” the girlfriend asked, and Johnny considered allowing Daniel to explain it to her, but Ali was beside him, saying something with that same disapproving voice she was always directing at him, so Daniel was…well, occupied. 

“Let me explain,” he began, and Daniel, who had leaned into his space to talk to Ali, rocketed right back out of it, his eyes back on Johnny like he was facing some sort of war on multiple fronts, the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones bright red. 

“Just shut up, Johnny –”

“No, I want to hear what Johnny has to say, Danny –”

Danny, huh? Johnny gave him a smirk and fluttered his eyes at the girlfriend, preparing to speak. 

“You don’t want to hear what this con artist has to say, Mandy –”

Danny and Mandy, how cute. 

“Johnny –” Ali’s voice, almost behind him, was a growl, but Johnny could still hear LaRusso’s voice – _what the hell are you doing here with him, anyway?_ – like he owned Ali still, and it was that voice that pushed him away from logic, as it always had. 

“Ali was my girlfriend for two years when we were in high school,” Johnny said, and the moment he started talking, Daniel went silent. “And then _Danny_ came into town, a week after we broke up –”

“It was _two_ weeks –”

“Whatever. And then he swoops in and starts dating her.” Mandy’s big blue eyes widened for a moment before they left Johnny’s to find Ali, still half-hidden behind him. “And they were the, uh, would you say the It Couple of West Valley High for all of our senior year?” 

Neither of them spoke. 

“Anyway, Ali dumped him at prom, and I suspect this is the first time you two have seen each other since that night, am I right, Danny?” 

He was pretty sure he was about to get punched. Daniel had both of his hands clenched in tight little fists, his angry flush spreading all the way to his ears, and this time, Mandy wasn’t there to soothe him. She was still processing, her eyes on something far away. Dimly, Johnny recognized that the tournament had started. 

“God _dammit,_ Johnny,” Ali snapped, jumping up from her seat. 

“I’m not saying I’m holding it against him!” Johnny protested, even though he still did kind of hold it against him, a little bit, especially when he was glaring at him like that, little Jersey punk. “I was just telling the story.” 

But she was gathering her cardigan and her purse, refusing to look at them both while she did it. 

“You know what? You two deserve each other,” she snapped before stomping away. 

He didn’t call after her; he didn’t chase after her. He knew there was no point. He just watched her leave, knowing that he would call her later and she wouldn’t answer. He would go back to that taco stand and hope to catch her there. He would apologize and he wouldn’t mean it, and she would know. 

That was the way it always went. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about Ali?” Mandy was asking, and Johnny felt the first pang of guilt. She didn’t sound angry, she sounded _sad_. 

“Amanda, that was a long time ago –”

“Clearly not long enough, if you’re still going to get all huffy about it now,” Amanda pointed out. Johnny turned his eyes out to the fighting groups, still divided throughout the mats, preliminary rounds already halfway through. “I thought you liked karate.” 

“I _love_ karate –”

“Do you? Because all you’ve been since we got here is angry and tense,” she sighed, and Johnny could feel the tension in LaRusso’s body next to him, like he was priming himself to speak. 

“Mandy, listen –”

She stood up, taking Daniel’s hand with her. “No, look, I think I’m going to go with Ali. Call me later, if you want.” She glanced over at Johnny and gave him a wan smile. “It was…well, it wasn’t nice to meet you –”

“I get it,” he said. He looked up just in time to see a kid sweep his opponent’s leg for the win. 

_Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Lawrence?_

***

Daniel was always a talker. His mother joked that it was down to his Italian heritage – _we’re all talkers, Daniel, all of us, that’s just who we are_ – but more often than not, he was saying things out loud to get them out of his head. If he didn’t say it out loud, the words would rattle around in his head until they grew in volume and he couldn’t hear anything else. He knew people called him “motormouth” when he was younger, but it was worth being made fun of if he could just hear himself think. 

He didn’t dare say anything out loud now. Everything kicking around in his head was incendiary, volatile, a quick slide down into the violent tendencies both he and Johnny Lawrence thrived on. Speaking the words out loud would be destructive.

He could feel Johnny’s eyes every time they came back to study him, quick and momentary but noticeable all the same. He wasn’t sure what Johnny expected to find – perhaps his prolonged silence was making him nervous. 

Perhaps he deserved it. 

“She just came here with me as a friend,” Johnny said finally. “She missed watching karate tournaments, after –”

“Right,” Daniel interrupted. He didn’t need to hear anymore. 

Johnny shifted in his seat, bringing his hands together and interlacing his fingers, tightening them and loosening them like a heartbeat. “Look, I really didn’t know you were coming. If I had –”

“You wouldn’t have showed?” Daniel asked incredulously. “Come on, Johnny, you and I both know you can’t resist a confrontation.” 

“I didn’t start shit this time, you did.” 

“Asking me how I won in ’85 wasn’t starting shit?” Daniel asked, and he shifted away from Johnny so he could see him better, could actually survey the man’s face without avoiding it. Johnny met his gaze unflinchingly, hands still. 

“It was just a question, LaRusso,” he said simply. “You’re the one who got defensive.” 

“I didn’t get defensive.” 

Johnny chuckled, under his breath. “Yeah, you’re _always_ defensive.” 

“With you.” 

“I didn’t ask you to be –”

“It’s hard to not be defensive when you’re always on the offensive –”

Johnny scoffed, leaning back, dropping his elbows to the bleacher behind him, lounging like a big cat, scruff on his chin and jacket tight around his shoulders like a high school quarterback come back to survey his kingdom. “I only go on the offensive when you get defensive.” 

“This isn’t a philosophical question, Johnny,” Daniel snapped. “We don’t have to wonder who hit first.” 

“Yeah, _you_ did –”

“Because you _kicked_ me!” 

Johnny leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands. “I really – I’m not doing this with you again.” 

Daniel clamped his mouth shut. He could hear the kids on the playground again. 

_Motormouth._

“If you’re going to talk to me, talk about something else,” Johnny’s voice took firm hold of him and yanked him out of his elementary memories. “What do you do now?” 

“Now that everyone’s angry at us, _now_ you want to have a civil conversation?” he asked, exasperated. 

Johnny shrugged. “No one else to talk to. Or we can sit in awkward silence.”

Daniel chose silence. He didn’t need to talk when he knew the person he was talking to didn’t actually want to hear him speak. He had enough of that at work, at home, with Amanda. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from talking so much that people got sick and tired of him. 

Johnny, beside him, tapped his foot on the floor. “Okay, seriously, _Danny_ , talk about something.” 

The shortened childish form of his name sent a shudder through him. “Oh, don’t call me that –”

That brought a genuine smile to Johnny’s face. “What? If it’s good enough for Mandy –”

“Don’t –”

Johnny held up his hands in mock surrender again. “Okay, fine. Talk and I won’t call you Danny.” 

He drew the word out just long enough that Daniel was sure he did it on purpose. It felt almost like Johnny was teasing him, the way a friend would rather than a bully. He caught Johnny’s mischievous gaze and rolled his eyes.

“I sell cars,” he said finally. 

Johnny’s eyes landed on him again, humor sparkling in his eyes, but didn’t laugh. That was more than Daniel expected. 

“What do _you_ do?” he prompted when Johnny didn’t speak. 

“Construction,” he answered. “Tell me about selling cars.” 

Childhood paranoia lingered, but Daniel talked anyway, going through how much he really didn’t like his job, how much he hated being the young guy at the dealership, always dealing with the older guys pranking him on stupid things and acting like he wasn’t beating their sales numbers every month. He talked about his mother’s nagging that he try to get his cousin Louie a job at the same dealership, as if that wouldn’t make his entire life more difficult. 

It was easy, talking to Johnny Lawrence when he wasn’t really looking at him, and then he came to the end of a story and tossed a glance in his direction. He was shocked to see Johnny watching him openly, the karate tournament completely forgotten. 

“What?” Daniel asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious again. 

Johnny lifted one shoulder. “Nothing,” he said. “I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk to me without sounding annoyed.” He wasn’t quite smiling, but there was something trying to work its way out of his jaw that he was trying to keep hidden. 

He wasn’t used to seeing Johnny look at him without derision – he always caught his side profile while he looked at someone else. It was almost overwhelming to see it directed at him, like looking into the sun. 

He cleared his throat and looked away.

“Well, you _are_ annoying.” 

Johnny nodded. “Which one of these kids is going to win this thing?” he asked, and Daniel remembered suddenly that they were watching a tournament. He blinked and turned his eyes away from Johnny and back to the competitors. 

“That one,” he said, pointing at an arbitrary kid on the far mat, dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Johnny leaned into his space to follow his finger, close enough that Daniel could smell his cologne, something that reminded him of the woods. Pine? Was that a smell? 

He had been holding his hand up too long. He dropped his hand to his leg again, Johnny chuckling beside him. 

“What?” he asked. 

“You picked a kid that looks just like you,” he said. “Look, he even has a tree on the back of his gi.” 

“Shut up, no he doesn’t,” Daniel snapped, craning his neck to see the kid better. He did, in fact, have a huge oak tree on the back of his gi, reminiscent of the bonsai on the back of his own. Johnny laughed again. “Shut up.” 

His insistence only made Johnny laugh harder, a full belly laugh that Daniel was positive he’d never heard before, not even by chance. It pulled a smile from him by sound alone, and then he looked back and caught Johnny’s eyes, bright blue and full of mirth, crinkled at the sides from genuine laughter. 

His mouth went dry.

“What’s wrong with your face, LaRusso?” he asked, the laughter dying down. He surveyed him with ambivalent concern. “Got a fever or something?” 

“What?” he snapped hurriedly. “No.” 

“Okay,” he answered, turning his eyes back out to the crowd. 

“Who do _you_ think is going to win?” Daniel asked, louder than was strictly necessary, to be heard over the hammering of his blood in his ears. 

Johnny jerked his head to a girl on his right, hair braided tight against her head, mouth in a tight line. “She’s gonna take it all.” 

“Really?” 

“Don’t be sexist –”

“I’m not –”

“I wasn’t sure about girls fighting either, I mean, I don’t think they were allowed when we were here, but I’ve been watching her since the prelims and she’s crazy fast,” Johnny was muttering quickly, eyes glancing into the crowd to see if her family could hear. “She’s got power and speed, and I think she’s got reach on most of the people left. I bet you she wins.” 

“You bet me, huh?” Daniel asked.

Johnny turned back to him, eyebrows raised. “Are you wagering me, LaRusso?” 

“Wagering is not a word –”

“It’s _absolutely_ a word –”

“Wager is a noun, you can’t just decide a word is a verb –”

Johnny groaned. “You’re such a nerd –”

“The English language is important –”

“God, okay, whatever, if I say you’re right can we get back to the actual betting?” Johnny asked. “Because if we don’t, I really might have to beat you up.” 

Daniel snorted. “As if you could.” 

“Don’t challenge me to a rematch, LaRusso,” Johnny warned. “I don’t have the social graces to politely say no.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “If my guy wins, you buy us drinks after the tournament,” he said. “If your girl wins, I buy.” 

“Lame wager.” 

He groaned. Was Johnny always so fucking irritating? “I figure saying the loser has to strip in front of the All Valley Committee was a little risqué –”

Johnny snickered. “Trying to get me naked already, LaRusso? You haven’t even bought me a drink yet.” 

Daniel coughed, hard enough that Johnny’s snickers grew to full on giggles, and didn’t answer. He wished, suddenly, that they had gotten to this place with Ali and Amanda here. But, he thought, they couldn’t be like this with other people around. It would be too personal, too…something. 

“You’re too easy, LaRusso,” Johnny muttered, his shoulder bumping his as he leaned forward to watch his predicted winner. 

***

He got lucky, that was all there was to it. Daniel’s arbitrary choice for champion was knocked out in the semi-final round, his left knee injured in a poorly calculated kick that had kept his mobility severely limited for the rest of his fight. Johnny watched, from the corner of his eye, Daniel drop his hand to his own knee, the fingers tightening and loosening rhythmically, like he was soothing it. 

He thought about apologizing, but would Daniel even believe it? It was too late for that, and he didn’t know how he’d navigate around another LaRusso anger explosion. They settled into a relatively peaceful silence as the semi-finals continued, shoulders pressed together as more and more people showed up to fill the stands. 

“What kind of construction do you do?” Daniel finally asked when the kid had been gently helped off the mat and taken to the medic. “You never said.” 

Johnny shrugged. “All kinds.” 

“Way to be specific,” Daniel grumbled, and Johnny sighed. 

“It’s not a dream job, LaRusso,” he pointed out. “There’s nothing really fun about it.” 

“And selling cars is?” 

Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Fair enough.” 

“I always figured you’d go to college,” Daniel murmured as the next pair of kids got set up. “Your dad had the money.” 

He felt lead in his limbs, the way he always did when Sid was mentioned. “My _step_ -dad made it clear that he wasn’t going to give me money to go to college,” he muttered, turning his head away so Daniel could barely hear him. “Not that I would have gotten in anyway.” 

“Oh,” Daniel said blankly. Then: “you’re not dumb, Johnny.” 

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing instead. Daniel didn’t know how smart he was or wasn’t. Still, he felt a little mollified, like some tiny wound had been covered and healed. 

“Your girlfriend…” he trailed off, mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Daniel, beside him, turned toward him. “How’d you manage that?” 

Immediately, his skeptical face dissolved into amusement. “Shut up.” 

“She’s hot,” Johnny pointed out.

Daniel nodded. “I know she is.” He paused, his eyes looking out over the mats. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said finally. “Not really.” 

Johnny furrowed his brows. “Then…why did you let her leave? Go call her, idiot!”

Daniel shrugged. “I like Amanda a lot, but…” 

Johnny looked away from the match and toward him. Daniel was still looking out over the mats, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular. “But what?” 

“I don’t know,” Daniel said thoughtfully. How horrible would it be for him to say that he hadn’t really thought about her since she left? Truthfully, he had already forgotten their entire drive over to the tournament, their gentle teasing in the car, the promises of dinner at her favorite restaurant after. 

All of it had been washed cleanly away when he locked eyes with Johnny through the throngs of people congratulating them on an achievement from a decade ago. He remembered, now, with shocking clarity, the way Johnny’s face had gone determinedly impassive, the way Ali had to pull him forward, to bring him back to himself. 

Perhaps Johnny would understand. 

“Have you ever thought what the person you end up marrying will be like?” he asked, and Johnny’s jaw tightened before he turned and looked back out to the crowd, where the final match was getting set up. 

“Just figured I wasn’t really the marrying type,” he said, a nonchalant shrug not really hiding his quiet delivery. 

“I mean, when you were a kid,” Daniel insisted. “My mom used to make me watch these movies with her –”

“Sure, she made you –”

“Oh shut up,” Daniel nudged Johnny with his shoulder, knocking him awry for a moment. “She loved watching romantic comedies. She was obsessed with _Grease_.” 

“You’re not about to break into song, are you, Danny boy?” 

He glared at Johnny before continuing. “Those movies always had the man and woman fall in love because of some monumental purpose that brought them together. They were meant to be, you know? It was…divine. There was something religious about it, almost.” He paused, expecting Johnny to say something sarcastic, something biting about his girly fantasies. But when he looked over, Johnny was looking down at their feet, halfway between watching the tournament and watching Daniel speak. “I always thought that when I found the right person, it would be…clear to me.” 

Johnny didn’t say anything. 

“I don’t know, I guess it’s stupid –”

“It’s a little stupid –”

It startled a laugh out of him. “Gee, thanks –”

“No,” Johnny chuckled. “No, I mean, expecting yourself to know instantly is stupid. I mean, all of those stupid romance movies aren’t all rainbows and sunshine. They fight, they break up, and they find their way back to each other. It’s not easy, it’s not perfect. So why would real life be any different?” 

Daniel smirked. “Sounds like you watch a lot of romantic comedies.” 

“Watch it, LaRusso, my mom likes them too.” 

He turned back to the tournament, Johnny’s top choice for champion on one side and a stocky redheaded boy on the other, face full of freckles. He didn’t like to think of the realistic parameters of real life. Most of the time, the rules of life meant he was going to get stepped on, he would be forgotten, ignored. But hadn’t he broken the rules of life by coming here, fighting without enough training, winning? 

And wasn’t he breaking some sort of unspoken rule now, by sitting next to his teenage rival and realizing that he wasn’t having a terrible time? 

“I told you that you weren’t dumb, Johnny.” 

***

The girl he chose won. He watched carefully, his conversation with LaRusso stalling into silence when the final match started, both of them watching closely, with eyes that spoke of experience. They watched, without speaking, her form, her speed, her power, watched her opponent block, dodge, strike. 

When both of them were tied with one point, Daniel leaned over to Johnny without looking, and said, “She’s going to win.” 

The words were said quietly, so quietly Johnny felt his breath ghost over the side of his face, his cologne (or was it shampoo? He couldn’t decide) following the words, like Daniel was whispering a spell. There was something spicy about it, and a sweet undertone that reminded Johnny of the summer after high school, when he refused to let himself worry about what he was going to do for the rest of his life. Johnny nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and kept watching.

And then she got her leg swept, and landed hard on her knee, and Johnny, without thinking, dropped his own hand over Daniel’s hand that immediately went to his own knee, knuckles tense over the old injury. 

He felt Daniel go rigid, felt his eyes roaming the side of his face, but Johnny kept his own eyes on the tournament, on the girl who winced when she stood but rolled her shoulders out and got back into a fighting position to keep going. 

“I didn’t want to do that to your knee,” he said, quietly enough that he could convince himself Daniel couldn’t hear. “Kreese told me to.” 

Daniel didn’t speak for a long time, but didn’t move his hand, either, so they stayed there, in uneasy silence, while the match continued. 

“I know,” he finally said when the All Valley Committee member picked up the trophy and motioned for the two of them to stand. They obliged, Daniel turning his hand to capture Johnny’s hand tightly in his own for a moment before letting go. 

Johnny didn’t hear the last point land – he didn’t hear the eruption of the crowd. He was too busy looking at Daniel, whose face was still flushed, his eyes bright amber under the lights. He had to be nudged forward to take the first place trophy in his hand while Daniel held the other side; distantly, he could hear people congratulating that girl – saying her name, which he never bothered to catch, and then he was holding out the trophy to her, operating on muscle memory. 

“You’re alright,” he said, his eyes finding Daniel’s with the new champion between them. He could hear the ghost of them both. 

_“You’re alright, LaRusso. Good match.”_

_“Thank you.”_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-tournament.

“Did you hear me?” Johnny asked when they were standing outside the bar, Daniel insisting that he was going to hold up his end of their lame wager. Daniel was slipping his jacket on, as if he needed to wear a jacket inside a bar, but he was full of nervous energy that he couldn’t explain, or rather, wouldn’t dwell on long enough to explain, and buttoning and unbuttoning his blazer was the extent of fidgeting he could manage. 

“Right now?” he asked, looking up at Johnny, standing a step above him. “No.” 

“I mean, at the tournament,” Johnny said unhelpfully. “In ’84.” 

_“You’re alright LaRusso.”_

He had been full of adrenaline and pain at the time, scared as hell that he had been lifted off the ground by people he didn’t even know, but even still, Johnny’s voice had shot right through him, warmed him from the inside out. 

_“You’re alright, LaRusso.”_

He looked down at the ground and then back up. “Yeah,” he said, unsure of his tone, unsure of his intention. “Yeah, I heard you.” He wasn’t sure why Johnny was bringing it up, unless – 

He’d heard Johnny tell the winner she was alright, and when he looked up, he caught Johnny looking at him, eyes full of something depthless, unfathomable. He felt like Johnny was trying to tell him something, and he’d love to understand it, but the more he thought about it, the more nervous it made him, and his mind was starting to shy away from it, as if it knew something he didn’t. 

“I meant it, you know,” he said into the silence, when Daniel didn’t say anything else. They were still standing outside the bar, Johnny hesitating like he didn’t really want to go in. “I meant to –”

Here he stopped, tucking his hands into his pockets of his jeans, a teenager all over again. Daniel watched him shift his weight from one foot to another, his eyes guarded like they were when he shoved him against those lockers when they were in high school. 

_“Why the intimidation game? You know you can kick my ass seven ways to Sunday so why do you do it?”_

_“Maybe I like it.”_

He hadn’t thought about that exchange in a long time, much less the clench in his chest that he’d felt after Johnny had finished speaking. He’d stayed there, leaning against the lockers for a long time, feeling the searing burn of Johnny’s hands on his shoulders, on his eyes burning into his. 

“Come on,” Daniel said, tilting his head toward his car, Johnny’s back in the parking lot at the convention center. They hadn’t discussed going anywhere in the same car – Johnny had just gotten into the passenger seat like it was natural, and Daniel hadn’t argued. 

This time, it was Johnny who wasn’t arguing, but following obediently. 

“Where are we going?” he asked when Daniel turned the car on, the radio quiet beneath them. 

Daniel settled his hands on the wheel loosely and sighed. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. He turned to find Johnny looking at him pensively in the darkness, hair falling into his eyes. 

He wanted to push it back. He just clenched his hand on the wheel and didn’t move. 

Johnny surveyed him closely before turning away. “Drive,” he said, commandingly but not unkindly. “I’ll tell you where to go.” 

***

Johnny was having a crisis. First, watching most of the All Valley tournament with his adolescent nemesis without any sort of physical violence was concerning in itself. But they were the only people there they could talk to, so it was natural that they struck up a conversation, wasn’t it? 

But learning about LaRusso’s life was interesting, and every little admission had taught Johnny something about the little twerp that he considered valuable, though where that judgment came from, he wasn’t sure. 

And then they were laughing, cracking jokes, and then Johnny was putting his hand over Daniel’s when confronted with an old, ugly memory. 

That was when things really started to get out of control. 

It should have been easy to take his hand back, to apologize and maintain a physical distance, keep things friendly. But he hadn’t taken his hand back, and the more he told himself that he should, the more he defied his own suggestion and left it there, over Daniel’s, the man himself studying Johnny’s profile like he wasn’t really sure who he was looking at anymore. 

And then the trophy. 

He remembered passing LaRusso the trophy, pain contorting his face, covered in sweat. The guilt was drowning him already, washing over him in waves that he couldn’t suppress now that the fight was over. Then Daniel’s hand had closed over his for a second before taking the trophy more securely. 

He had meant to apologize, to actually say and be sorry for what he’d done, and then Kreese had put his arm around his neck in the parking lot and everything went straight to hell. He had been far too torn up about the demolition of karate and his mentor to remember to apologize to Daniel LaRusso – he had almost forgotten him completely, his days filled with illegal drinking, weed, and a desperate attempt to chase away sadness he didn’t know how to process. 

By the time he surfaced from that pit, they had graduated and he missed his own graduation ceremony. 

He directed Daniel to a little liquor store near his apartment and let him wander the aisles, pensive and quiet. He hated it when Daniel was quiet – he was so used to hearing him talk, most of the time the words nothing but a nervous babble, that the silence made him nervous. 

“Don’t buy Zima, LaRusso, or I swear to God I will beat you up in the parking lot and steal your lunch money,” Johnny said over Daniel’s shoulder when he caught him staring at the bottles in the cooler. 

“Shut up, Johnny,” Daniel said, but there was a laugh in the words, an easy disregard of Johnny’s empty threat. It wasn’t trust, but it was a cheap facsimile of trust, and Johnny was willing to take that. 

“I’m going to go grab you something I know you drink,” Johnny said, leaving Daniel behind at the coolers and stalking down the wine aisle. He knew, without really acknowledging where the certainty came from, that Daniel LaRusso was a wine drinker. It was obvious. 

He grabbed two bottles of red wine and brought it back with him, smirking when Daniel’s eyes lit up in recognition. 

“See, LaRusso?” he said before he could stop himself. “I’m in here,” he said, tapping his temple. 

“You’re in your head?” Daniel asked, trying to bite back a grin. 

Johnny rolled his eyes. “No, stupid, I’m in _your_ head.” 

“Shouldn’t you be tapping on my forehead, then?” Daniel asked, cocking his head like a curious puppy. Johnny rolled his eyes and turned away. “Here, I’ll grab yours.” He went to the cooler all the way at the end and pulled out a pack of Coors Banquets. “See? I’m in here, too,” he said, reaching out to tap Johnny’s temple as he walked by, back toward the cashier. 

Johnny stayed where he was, watching Daniel grab a mid-sized bottle of vodka on the way to the cashier. There was something about the way he moved, or carried himself, that reminded Johnny of seeing him in the hallways, eyes wide and constantly searching the crowd, shoulders hunched. Trying not to act scared when he really was. 

He felt the guilt again, ugly and sour in the back of his throat, and then Daniel looked back at him and said “Come on, John,” and he realized he was still holding Daniel’s bottles of red wine in his hands. 

“You have orange juice at your place, don’t you?” Daniel asked, his eyes slyly leaving his wallet to find Johnny. 

“Yeah,” Johnny answered slowly, cautiously. Where was he going with that? 

“Great,” Daniel said, passing over his money to the cashier. “We’re going to your place, then.” 

“We’re _what_?” 

***

He wasn’t sure what made that decision. Maybe it was the way Johnny smirked at him, all smug confidence, holding up the bottles of red wine. Maybe he just wanted to see what he’d do; either way, Johnny blinked in surprise but didn’t contradict him, and when they got in the car, Johnny willingly and eagerly gave him directions to his apartment. 

“It’s a dump,” he said in warning, his lips turned upward in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So no judgment.” 

“So it mine,” Daniel shrugged. “There’s a bloodstain on my ceiling.” 

“Shut up, LaRusso, no there isn’t,” Johnny said with a chuckle. “Your life has been dramatic enough, there’s no way someone was murdered in the apartment above you.” 

“Excuse me, you were the main source of drama in my regularly boring life, you don’t get to decide who died in the apartment upstairs.”

“Oh, you’re right, my fucking bad, let me just call Cagney and Lacey.” 

Daniel snorted a laugh. “Did – did you watch _Cagney and Lacey_?” 

Johnny shifted in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Whatever, it’s good.” 

He laughed again, one hand coming off the wheel to pat Johnny on the forearm. “It’s okay, Johnny, I watched it, too.” 

Johnny, next to him, uncrossed his arms. 

“With my mom.” 

“Shut _up_ , LaRusso –” 

It was shockingly easy to talk to Johnny Lawrence through jokes and half-hearted insults. Much easier than the honest conversations they had back at the tournament and outside the bar. Those conversations felt dangerous, like they weren’t supposed to be having them. Making fun of Johnny, getting made fun of in return? That felt normal, safe. 

And then they were pulling up to his apartment and Johnny was looking over at him in the dark, eyes somehow still bright, hair sparkling gold, and Daniel had to take a breath to gather the courage to look away. The beginning of the day – the tournament, the argument, Ali and Amanda – felt like years away. He didn’t feel like the same person now, in the dark car, sitting beside his high school bully, as he did when he got into his car that morning. 

He didn’t feel that siren song of drink and what ifs that usually came to him at this time of night – in fact, he felt no urge to get drunk at all, and he wasn’t, for the first time in a while, wondering about what he had to do to be happy. 

It wasn’t that he was necessarily ecstatically happy here, right now, but wondering about his future didn’t seem to matter in this present. 

“What?” Johnny asked, leaning his head back on the headrest, exposing his neck to the shine of the streetlight outside. “Change your mind?” 

“No,” Daniel said instantly, without thinking. “It’s just drinks.” 

“Mhmm,” Johnny said, his eyes leaving Daniel’s to settle outside. 

“I’m just thinking,” Daniel said wistfully, turning to look in the same direction Johnny was, giving the other man the opportunity to look back and survey his profile without interruption. 

“Dangerous words, LaRusso,” Johnny said quietly. “Thinking.”

There was the opportunity for a joke, and Daniel watched it slide by without saying anything at all. Instead, he sighed, and felt Johnny’s eyes drop to his chest, where he watched the breath travel. 

“Are you happy?” Daniel asked, and Johnny reached over to pull the keys out of the ignition, twirling them around his fingers while he considered the question. “Like, beyond today. In your life. Are you happy?” 

“Why?” Johnny asked, pushing the passenger door open, swinging his legs out. It was like he couldn’t stand to be in the car anymore, in the thick silence that Daniel’s musings had brought. He went over to the driver’s side and pulled open the door, offering Daniel a hand. 

“Just answer the question,” Daniel said impatiently, allowing Johnny to pull him upright. 

“No,” Johnny said, and reached behind Daniel to shut the driver’s side door, putting him so close that Daniel could smell his cologne again, could feel the brush of his shirt against his jacket. “Are you?” 

“No,” Daniel replied, his breath gone, but why it was gone, and where it went, he didn’t know. Johnny surveyed him, a sad almost frown on his face, and reached up to brush a bit of Daniel’s hair out of his face. He left his hand there, hovering over Daniel’s cheek, for a moment before taking it back. 

“Tell me about it inside,” he said softly. 

***

Daniel was danger. Johnny decided that back when he was in high school, when his big brown eyes were blinking up at him from the sand on the beach, and he felt it every day that Daniel got into his face for no reason, every time the referee raised the flag. He felt it now, in the more adult lines of Daniel’s face, still young and handsome the way a soap opera star was handsome. 

He was pretty enough, and sad enough, that Johnny ached to make him happy. 

He had always been like that – a people pleaser. He worked himself to death trying to make Kreese happy, to make his mother happy, to make Ali happy, hell, to make his friends happy. Making people happy turned him into a person he didn’t recognize, so he made an effort to quell the urge when he got out of high school. But here was the urge, rearing its head again, with fresh intensity. 

He let Daniel into his crappy apartment, watching his face carefully for judgment. But there wasn’t any, not even a moment of quickly hidden distaste that Johnny expected. No, he glanced around the small living room and looked back at Johnny, who was closing the door behind him and locking it. 

Like he only wanted to look at him. 

“Open the wine,” Johnny instructed, and Daniel turned obediently away to the kitchen, opening drawers to find the corkscrew. Johnny watched him work, content to enjoy how at home Daniel looked in his shitty kitchenette, his suit starkly out of place, but his hands easy and comfortable. He watched Daniel’s hands on the wine bottle, practiced and almost reflexive on the neck of the bottle. 

He realized, with a jolt, when Daniel poured some of the wine into a glass, that he had been watching Daniel and his hands the entire time, transfixed. 

He shook his head and moved to turn on the lamp in the living room. This place needed more light. 

Daniel passed him a bottle of Coors and settled beside him on the couch, staring into his glass of wine. Now that he mentioned it, Johnny could see the ghost of sadness, lingering around his lines, the edges of his jacket, the slump of his shoulders. 

“Why aren’t you happy?” Daniel asked, and Johnny cleared his throat and looked away. 

He shrugged. “I’m in a shitty job with a crappy apartment and no real friends, LaRusso,” he said in a nonchalant rush that Daniel digested with raised eyebrows. “But I can’t change any of those things, can I?” 

Daniel pursed his lips. “You have friends,” he pointed out. “What about…?”

“I mean, I have them, but how often do you hang out with your friends?” he asked, turning his gaze back to Daniel, who blinked and looked away. “That’s what I thought.” 

“I always thought you’d be rich by now,” Daniel muttered. “Rich and married and happy.” 

“Sounds like you spend far too much time thinking about me,” Johnny joked. Daniel blanched, taking a long pull of his wine, too much to be a refined sip. Johnny watched him do it, eyes carefully taking in the nervous movement of his hands on the stem of the wine glass. “It was a joke.” 

“I knew that.” 

“Sure you did,” Johnny said, taking a long drink of his beer. “You’re very easy to fluster, LaRusso. You didn’t used to be that way.” 

“Yeah?” Daniel asked, getting up to pour himself more wine. “I find it hard to believe you were taking notes while you were yanking me off a fence.” 

“I paid attention,” Johnny said defensively, and snapped his jaw shut. 

Daniel turned around, wine glass in one hand and wine bottle in the other. “Watch out Johnny, some people might interpret that statement incorrectly.” 

Johnny shrugged, trying to ignore his clammy hands. “Why aren’t you happy?” he asked. 

Daniel came back to the living room with the bottle of wine and another beer for Johnny. “There’s nothing really wrong with my life, but there’s nothing really right with it either, do you know what I mean? I just constantly feel like I’m missing something important, like someone took a wall out of my apartment and I just haven’t realized it’s missing.”

“Somehow that sounds worse than just hating your job,” Johnny said quietly. 

“I just feel like I’m wasting time,” Daniel said, following the statement with another gulp of his wine. 

“All of life is wasting time,” Johnny replied, lifting one shoulder. “You just gotta find something that makes you happy while you’re wasting it.” 

“Don’t you think there’s something important you should be doing?” Daniel asked, turning so his knee was almost over Johnny’s leg on the couch. “Something that’s your calling?” 

“I don’t think it’s that deep,” Johnny said, his eyes on Daniel’s leg. “I just want to be happy – at least kind of happy.” He sighed, leaning back, careful not to move the leg that Daniel’s knee was touching. “You’re such a control freak, LaRusso, no wonder you’re having an existential crisis all the time.” 

“What makes you happy?” Daniel asked, Johnny’s jibe ignored. 

“I like spending time with my mom,” Johnny said truthfully, cracking open the second beer. “I liked karate.” He opened his mouth to say something else, and thought better of it. Daniel caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and tilted his head at him. 

“What else?” he asked. 

_Talking to you._

Johnny cleared his throat. “Beating you up was a highlight,” he said cagily, his eyes avoiding Daniel’s. 

Daniel scoffed. “Whatever, Johnny.” 

“You know what you need?” Johnny said, shifting to face Daniel better. “You need to start living in the moment, LaRusso. Stop planning, stop plotting, stop trying to live up to this idea of what you think your life is supposed to be. Maybe it just isn’t meant to be.” 

Daniel stared at him, brown eyes soft in the light of the lamp. “I’m not a spontaneous person, Johnny.” 

“I’m shocked.” 

“Shut up,” he rolled his eyes, nudging Johnny with his shoulder. 

“I am sorry that I picked a fight with you today,” Johnny said softly into the silence. “Old habits.” 

Daniel shrugged. “Feels like we’re killing the old habits today, John.” 

There was something in that statement, something beyond the words, that Johnny wanted to focus on, but Daniel’s knee was still on his leg, his shoulder pressed into his arm, and he felt like they were skirting around something neither of them wanted to admit to. He couldn’t focus on it long enough to draw any conclusions. 

“You’re alright, LaRusso,” Johnny said quietly, dropping his hand onto Daniel’s leg, hand closing easily over his thigh. Daniel exhaled a laugh, the sound shaky in the silence. 

“You have to stop saying that to me,” Daniel groaned, dropping his head back to the couch cushion, eyes half-closed. 

Johnny tilted his head to see Daniel better, the long column of his throat, the barely apparent stubble there, the golden fire of his eyes reflecting the lamplight. “Or what, LaRusso?” 

Daniel reached for him, fingers closing around Johnny’s neck gently to pull him closer. He released him immediately once Johnny was farther in his space, fingers just barely tracing against his neck, as if finding where Kreese would have left his bruises. Johnny didn’t move, didn’t dare break the spell, lest Daniel decide to break and run. 

But he didn’t – he let his eyes rove over Johnny’s face, cast in shadow from the lamp behind him, one hand still holding his wine. It was like he was holding his breath, making a decision. 

Live in the moment, Johnny wanted to say, and as soon as he thought it, Daniel leaned over and pressed his lips to Johnny’s neck, the same place his fingers were just touching, soothing phantom bruises from so long ago. Johnny exhaled, shaky in the silence, and tilted his head back to give Daniel better access. 

He heard Daniel sigh against his skin, his lips and teeth following soon after. Johnny hissed, still trying not to move, trying not to scare him away, like a skittish animal. The sound sent a laugh though Daniel, who only shifted on the couch so he was halfway onto Johnny’s lap, knee digging into the inside of Johnny’s thigh until Johnny’s hand guided him completely over, the other hand removing Daniel’s glass of wine and setting it clumsily onto the table beside him. 

He wanted to pull Daniel up to his mouth, but Daniel’s breath on his neck, his teeth and lips were enough to hypnotize him almost stillness, the only movement his hand sneaking up Daniel’s back to pull him closer. 

Daniel pulled back, as far as he could with Johnny’s hand on his back, and shrugged off his jacket. Johnny watched him do it, trying to catch his breath without Daniel noticing. 

But then Daniel was leaning back in, his hands sneaking beneath Johnny’s flannel. “You okay?” he asked, and his voice was painfully soft, a tender whisper that Johnny didn’t think he was capable of. 

Johnny didn’t speak, just nodded, and Daniel smiled before leaning in to kiss him on the lips. Johnny met him eagerly, the hand that wasn’t on Daniel’s back cradling the back of his head to keep him close. Daniel groaned against his mouth, hands sliding up and out of Johnny’s flannel to find the side of his face and his hair, tugging on the longer pieces. 

“Little shit,” Johnny mumbled against his lips. Daniel just laughed, pulling harder, pulling back to see Johnny’s face when he moaned, his eyes fluttering closed. 

“Hmm?” Daniel asked, his voice still quiet, against the skin of Johnny’s neck. “What was that?” 

With an aggrieved sigh, Johnny wrapped an arm around Daniel’s legs and stood, taking the smaller man with him. “Let’s go, LaRusso,” he said, still out of breath. “We’re taking this fight to the mat.” 

He didn’t release him until he got to his bed, careful to lower Daniel almost all the way before dropping him the last six inches or so, grinning smugly when Daniel jolted in surprise. 

And then Daniel’s eyes were looking past him to the ceiling. 

“You have a star up there,” he said, pointing up at it. 

Johnny crawled over him, pressing a firm kiss to his lips before turning over to look up at the star. He didn’t say anything. After a moment, Daniel curled himself into Johnny’s side and used two fingers to tilt Johnny’s chin down to him. 

He kissed him, soft and sweet, and Johnny forgot all about the star. 

***

When Johnny woke the next morning, Daniel was gone. The sun was streaming in through his blinds, bright and unapologetic, but Daniel himself was gone, as were his clothes, except for his shirt, which Johnny had proudly ripped open, buttons sent flying to the other side of the room. Johnny reached for his own clothes, getting half-dressed before continuing the search for Daniel throughout the little apartment. 

But it was a small place, and he knew without searching that Daniel wasn’t there. 

He went to make himself a coffee, only to find a pot already made. He poured himself a cup, trying to decide how he felt about it. Perhaps this was just some weird one-time thing for Daniel, despite the things he’d said the night before. Maybe it was a blessing that he was gone already. 

And then the front door nudged open, and Daniel was carefully, quietly closing the door, as if to keep Johnny from waking up. He was wearing Johnny’s flannel shirt from the night before, the sleeves too long and shoulders too broad. He had a little bag in his hand. 

He caught sight of Johnny when he turned around and let out a little squeak of surprise. Johnny didn’t say anything, but sipped his coffee, trying to ignore the little relieves sigh he let out at the sight of him. 

“I got you something,” Daniel said when he didn’t speak. He passed Johnny the little bag, and a quick peek inside told Johnny it was a little bag of glow in the dark stars. 

“One star is lonely,” Daniel explained when Johnny said nothing. “You should have a sky full of stars.” 

Johnny bit back a smile and slipped an arm around Daniel’s waist, pulling him into his embrace. He kissed the side of his head, the stars tight in his hand. 

“Hang them with me?”


End file.
